What is Happening to Our Biodiversity and Ecosystems?
The report presented today shows that if we do not adopt the right policies, the current decline in biodiversity and the related loss of ecosystem services will continue and in some cases even accelerate. Some ecosystems are likely to be damaged beyond repair. With a “business as usual” scenario, by 2050 we will be faced with serious consequences: • 11% of the natural areas remaining in 2000 could be lost, chiefly as a result of conversion for agriculture, the expansion of infrastructure, and climate change • almost 40% of the land currently under low-impact forms of agriculture could be converted to intensive agricultural use, with further biodiversity losses • 60% of coral reefs could be lost – even by 2030 – through fishing, pollution, diseases, invasive alien species, and coral bleaching due to climate change. Current trends on land and in the oceans demonstrate the severe dangers that biodiversity loss poses to human health and welfare. Climate change is exacerbating this problem.
